A two-decades-old battle between a Nevada rancher and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) has resulted in officials armed with machine guns surrounding the ranch and forcibly removing the owner’s cattle, according to the rancher’s family.

Cliven Bundy, the last rancher in Clark County, Nev., has been fighting a “one-man range war” since 1993, when he decided to take a stand against the agency, refusing to pay fees for the right to graze on a ranch run by his family for centuries.

After years of court battles, the BLM secured a federal court order to have Bundy’s “trespass cattle” forcibly removed with heavy artillery, the family said.

People are now showing up to protest in support of the Bundys.

For those protesters, feds have set up a designated First Amendment area, to which somebody tacked on a reminder:

It’s a powder keg situation, and fairly recent history shows that when there’s a powder keg, the government’s default solution is to flick lit matches at it:

From near and wide, armed men are trickling toward Cliven Bundy’s ranch, where the rancher’s fight with the federal government has become a rallying cry for militia groups across the United States.

On Wednesday, that dispute teetered at the edge of deadly conflict, when Cliven Bundy’s family members and supporters scuffled with rangers from the Bureau of Land Management sent to protect the federal roundup of Bundy’s cattle on public land.

One of Bundy’s seven sons was shot with a stun gun, and Bundy’s sister was knocked to the ground; but no one was seriously hurt, and no arrests were made.

What sparked all this? Turtles, I guess:

Environmentalists are praising the government’s forceful actions, which are being taken to protect the “desert tortoise.”

“We’re heartened and thankful that the agencies are finally living up to their stewardship duty,” said Rob Mrowka, a Nevada-based senior scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Gold Butte area has been officially designated as critical habitat for threatened tortoises — meaning the area is essential to their long-term survival as a species.”

“[Cliven] Bundy has long falsely believed that Gold Butte is his ranch,” added Terri Robertson, president of Friends of Sloan Canyon.

The government plans to remove all of Bundy’s 908 head of cattle at a reported cost of $3 million (are they removing them by chauffeured limo?). So that’s $3 million spent to remove cattle because the government claims Bundy owes $1 million in grazing fees. Makes sense, eh?

Because I’m in a solution-oriented mood, how about this instead: The government takes $1 million of the $3 million they were going to spend on cattle removal, applies it to Bundy’s “grazing fee” they say is past due, leave him alone and save taxpayers $2 million in the process.

But it’s never that easy in the world of federal land grabs. The government has a point to make and they will make it.